1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an removing apparatus for molded products and a method for cutting off gate of molded products, which is provided with a gate cutting feature and by which molded products taken out from a molding machine are removing and product parts and their runner are cut off and separated from each other in a removing cycle.
2. Prior art
Conventionally, molded products are cut off to separate product parts from runners by a cutting unit arrayed so that cutting members whose quantity is coincident with the number of product parts of the molded products are positioned at the gate position, which is the boundary between the product parts of the molded products and the runner (sprue part), at the side of the release position of the molded products at the machine frame of a removing apparatus. However, by controlling and moving the chuck unit that holds molded products taken out between metal molds of a molding machine, it is necessary to control and move the gates of the molded products with high accuracy so that the gates can be positioned between opened blade members, wherein the position control is complicated and cumbersome, and it is necessary to position the cutting unit with high accuracy so that the blade members of respective cutting members, face respective gates of the molded products when attaching the cutting unit to the apparatus frame, wherein work efficiency is worsened.
Also, in a prior art cutting unit, it was necessary to manufacture the cutting members, whose quantity is responsive to the size of molded products, quantity of the product parts, and respective gate positions, so that they can be arrayed and positioned at the respective gate positions. Therefore, where molded products having different gate positions are cut off, the attaching position of the cutting members is changed so that they can be coincident with the respective gate positions, or it was necessary to manufacture in advance cutting units in which the cutting members are disposed so that they are coincident with the respective gate positions.
Therefore, there were some problems in that, in the case where the array of the cutting members is changed, work for changing the position thereof is cumbersome, and in the case where a plurality of types of cutting units are manufactured in advance, parts cost of the cutting units may be increased.
Further, in the abovementioned cutting unit, since a number of cutting members that are coincident with the quantity of the product parts are required, the number of parts of the cutting unit itself is increased, resulting in an increase in cost.